This week’s “Preview” patches led for some bizarre, unexplained, and self-contradictory behavior. Right here’s what we’ve had the opportunity to piece together, predicated on what happened &ndash really; not on which Microsoft says will be supposed to occur.

Two general models of “Preview” patches arrived on Tuesday:

• Optional, non-security, Week Cumulative Up-dates for Earn10 versions 1809 c/d, 1903, 1909, and different Servers, but not Earn10 version 2004. 7 days patches in March due to the &ldquo microsoft stopped distributing the C/D;public health circumstance,” this week but started pushing them again.
• July 21, 2020 Cumulative Up-date Previews for .Internet Framework 3.5 and 4.8 on various variations of Win10. They are optional, the month non-security Preview patches released later in. Microsoft pushes Previews for .NET patches on Earn10 infrequently; this full year we’ve just seen two, among them in January, the other in February.

They’re Previews, this means the fixes available come in testing still. Normal users shouldn’t go near them anyplace.

In days gone by, the Preview patches (for both Earn10 and .Internet) have appeared as the jumbled mess within the Earn10 updating scheme, resulting in a universal cry in order to avoid clicking “Look for up-dates.”  Not ago long, doing this gave Microsoft carte blanche to install everything in the revise queue, including these “Preview” test patches around lying.

Starting with Earn10 version 1903, even though, Microsoft transformed its wayward ways with the addition of an important new feature that enables you to Pause Improvements. At a comparable period, Microsoft implemented (but didn’t bother to document) the Download and install prompt that people now neglect. The prompt forces one to approve an optional up-date before it’s installed.

Microsoft demonstrated off a version of this option within an article the other day (see screenshot).
Microsoft
Don’t be prepared to note that Download-and-install prompt on your own machine any right period soon. Microsoft hasn’t released the “2020-07 Cumulative Update Preview for Windows 10 Version 2004.”

The Download-and-install intermediate step can be an important one. It keeps normal customers from installing test variations of upcoming patches &ndash accidentally; the Preview updates.

install and

Download? Not.

With Microsoft’s new-found (and greatly appreciated!) execution of the “Install&rdquo and download; block on optional improvements, you may expect that both new Preview patches seems as Download-and-install choices on Win10 edition 1909 (and 1809 and 1903) machines.

this week As I explained previously, that didn’t happen. Focusing on two production Earn10 version 1909 devices I found that, a lot to my shock, the Earn10 Preview and the .Internet Preview behave very – and neither triggered the polite “Download and install” prompt.

The .Internet Preview behaved more-or-less as an old-fashioned Windows patch:

• On a Win10 version 1909 device with Pause Updates established, simply clicking Resume Updates installed the .NET Preview KB 4562900. That’s behavior in keeping with (but not the same as) the old Look for up-dates sandbagging – if you Resume Updates, you obtain the optional, non-security .Internet Preview installed whether it’s wanted by you or even not, without warning. Bam.
• On a Win10 version 1909 without Pause Updates set, the .Internet Preview appears within the wushowhide list. Hence, it is possible to prevent installing the manually .NET Preview, if the methods are usually known by you. Clicking on Look for improvements installs the Preview, like in the not-so-good days of the past just.

The optional, non-security, Week Win10 edition 1909 Preview didn&rsquo c/d;t arrive at all upon my devices. Try as I may, with Up-dates Paused or Resumed, clicking Look for updates with crazy abandon, I couldn’t obtain the Earn10 Cumulative Upgrade Preview KB 4559004 to set up, and couldn’t obtain it showing up even, with or with out a Download and install prompt.

That left myself scratching my head.

The bifurcated Update

It works out that Windows Revise isn’t the particular single, monolithic program that’s advertised within Microsoft’s Download and install announcements. As @abbodi86 points out:

• .Internet, Flash and CPU Microcode up-dates (which includes this week’s .NET Preview) are usually handled by the legacy “blast them should they look for updates” Windows Up-date program
• Cumulative Updates (including this week’s Earn10 Cumulative Upgrade Preview), version adjustments (“feature improvements”) and Chromium-based Edge up-dates are handled by the brand new, polite “Download and install” Windows Revise program.

It appears that the folks from Microsoft didn’t find out about the schizoid habits, either. In the initial Knowledge Base content for the .Internet Cumulative Up-date Preview, under “How exactly to get and install the upgrade,” Microsoft’s instructions used to state:

Move toConfigurations> Update & Safety > Windows Update. In the Optional improvements available area, you will discover the hyperlink to download and install the revise.

That would match the new, polite method of doing things. However in the past few days sometime, that KB article has been modified to state:

To download and install this up-date, go to Configurations > Upgrade & Security > Home windows Revise, and select Verify for updates.

That’s accurate – it’s the older “blast them should they check for updates” method. There’s no report of when that noticeable alter was made.

The missing optional, non-protection, C/D Week Preview

On your machine, is it possible to notice KB 4559004, the Win10 version 1909 (or 1903) cumulative update Preview? (For Win10 version 1809 clients it’s KB 4559003.) Neither may i, as you can plainly see in the screenshot below.
Microsoft
The Preview should appear as a install and Download option – at the very least, that’s what Microsoft’s Chris Morrisey described weekly ago:

In response to suggestions, these validated, production-high quality optional releases will undoubtedly be at this point called “Preview” releases for clearness, and you will be offered limited to Windows 10 and Home windows Server, version 1809 and later on…. To simplify update administration for this, these “Preview” releases will undoubtedly be shipped in the “C” week only…for all those in the Home windows Insider Windows or System Insider Program for Company, in-development versions of the non-security updates will undoubtedly be released to the particular Launch Preview Channel in the particular “B” week.

Which contradicts almost anything we saw this 7 days.

Once again, @abbodi86 found the rescue, clarifying:

You will only start to see the Win10 Cumulative Update Preview on machines which have joined the Release Preview Channel. Of Friday morning with this &ldquo as;C” week, which means Win10 1809, 1903 and 1909 machines within the Windows Insider Discharge Preview Channel shall obtain the Preview offer within polite “Download and install” fashion.

You won’t start to see the Preview wanted to Win10 edition 2004 machines. It isn’t out &ndash yet;  Morrisey’s comment regarding “B” 7 days notwithstanding.

Right now there’s also a few (undocumented) relationship between your TargetReleaseVersion group plan and if the Preview patch turns up. I discussed Win10 version 2004’s TargetReleaseVersionInfo in June. The policy right now has some influence on versions 1809 evidently, 1903 and 1909.

some day Microsoft will document a few of this stuff Perhaps. But I earned’t keep my breath.

Windows Update – an individual interface, the combined group guidelines, the registry configurations, and interactions within the spaghetti program code – has already been an unholy mess for a long time. With new definitions, brand new settings, (partially) deprecated configurations, conflicting settings, and inscrutable &ndash completely; demonstrably wrong &ndash sometimes; documentation, it’s the wonder that people get any ongoing function done.

We keep plugging on AskWoody.com.